A Lesson for Restaurants: Good Health is Good Business

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Serving lower-calorie foods is good business for restaurants. A new study shows that between 2006 and 2011, lower-calorie foods and beverages were the key growth engine for restaurants studied, including:

a 5.5 percent increase in same-store sales when compared with a 5.5 percent decline among chains selling fewer lower-calorie servings

a 10.9 percent growth in customer traffic when compared with a 14.7 percent decline

an 8.9 percent increase in total food and beverage servings, when compared with a 16.3 percent decrease

“This report shows that companies can serve both their interest in healthy profits and their customers’ interest in healthier eating,” said James S. Marks, MD, senior vice president and director of the Health Group at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. “We need more companies to make this shift, and now they have even more reasons to do so.”

Obesity rates in America have been growing for several decades, taking an enormous toll on our health and on our health care costs. Efforts to educate the public and calls for improved food labeling may be paying off. More restaurants are beginning to offer alternatives to fat and calorie-laden foods.

Study authors concluded that both fast-food and dine-in restaurant chains that grew their lower-calorie choices had better business results.

Perhaps if providing lower calorie or healthier choices isn’t enough incentive on its own, the bottom line will be.

“Consumers are hungry for restaurant meals that won’t expand their waist lines, and the chains that recognize this are doing better than those that don’t,” said Hank Cardello, lead author of the report, Senior Fellow at Hudson Institute, and Director of the Institute’s Obesity Solutions Initiative.

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